


it only thinks it's happening

by infiniteviking



Category: Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Uprising
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-11
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:37:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteviking/pseuds/infiniteviking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of horrible angst AUs, each based on another episode of <i>Tron: Uprising</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. beck's beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Note: 'Blackout' should be Part III, but Part II (based on 'Renegade') hasn't been written yet.

and nobody's watching you now

_Go on without me._

Screams. Distant flashes of red and white, rippling through force-fields impenetrable to outside interference. The crowd rising, quiet spreading among them in slow ripples of horrified realization at the example being made.

_Go on._

Acres, vast distance, squadrons of red guards barring his way — too big, Argon’s Coliseum, too wide, too deep, too far. Cold glass beneath his fingers, slick with last millicycle’s rain, too far to feel the ripples of energy as the discs strike home but feeling them anyway, barbed finality in every one.

_I’ll catch up with you later._

A high voice, amplified to carry across the whole Arena: Mara, panicking, forgetting everything but defense as her little cluster of allies shatters around her; Zed throwing himself against the wall that separates them, slamming his disc backwards through a warrior’s chest as another closes in from the side, and then—

_Without me._

A disc at his throat. He reaches for his own anyway, slowly, deliberately, without taking his eyes from the Arena, and feels dim and empty and cold, cold, cold when the disc drops and the voice of the program he’d spared earlier whispers, “Go. There’s nothing you can do.”

_Later._

Argon glows dimly far beyond the glass and he hears soft footsteps behind him.

“I want to do this,” he says, his gaze fixed on the city, his body clenched against the pain of what had been taken away from him, part of him wondering bitterly if Tron with all his wounds and his words could ever understand this kind of loss. “I have to do this.”

_Go on._

It seems like forever before Tron answers quietly, “I know.”

_____


	2. blackout

 

outside in the cold distance

The program who brought Zed’s bike back to the garage was vivid with tightly leashed victory. The hand on his shoulder, the welcome weight of the intact baton, the praise for its speed and intimation that his skillset might be a valued commodity in the future — it all left him dazed and incredulous, looking forward to this new world where there weren’t any blackouts and that renegade wasn’t around to mess up his life.

He spent the next few millicycles counting his newfound blessings. Mara was upset, sure, but she’d always thought they owed the renegade for saving them. He couldn’t get her to accept that it’d just been a fluke — the Games were still packed with poor glitch-heads who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The renegade had just been doing what he did best: causing trouble. Like he had been when he’d stolen Zed’s bike. Why would it have been personal?

They didn’t even know the guy.

It was better this way.

Zed believed it, blithely and wholeheartedly, until one day when walking into Able’s office got him yelled at and it suddenly clicked.

Why Able had been scarce on the floor since the race.

Why the guard in the tunnel hadn’t known about the bomb that was supposed to have saved them all from the blackouts until the renegade himself had mentioned it.

Why Beck had never come back.

He got as far as poking his head around the corner again, trying to speak but failing, and reading confirmation in Able’s beaten face before the Grid skewed again and he was running, running till he had room to ride, riding till he couldn’t see straight, slewing to a stumbling shamble on a dock deserted in its downshift, slumping over a rail to stare into the Sea when his legs no longer held him up.

Able found him there half a millicycle later, studying his own face flickering among the dark waves, for lack of anything saner to calculate on. Zed turned his head away, telling himself that if Able touched him he’d shove him away and take off again; he wasn’t some beta anymore and nothing was going to be all right again and there were _standards_. But the rail only creaked a little as Able settled against it, and then nothing happened for far too long to tolerate.

He’d just decided to do something about it when Able said calmly, “Kick that strut and you’ll land us both in the drink, and I _know_ you can’t swim.”

Zed buried his face in the crook of his arm. It wasn’t fair how the old guy always knew.

“I can’t believe it was him,” he mumbled finally, scaring himself with the jitters in his voice. “Why would he do that? Go and get himself killed? For _what_ —?”

The word echoed over the lightless water. Zed froze, expecting sentries to converge on them from out of nowhere. But nothing changed; the wind blew cold, Able was silent, and Beck was still dead.

It didn’t seem like enough. Glancing around, Zed felt guilt clog his channels, felt uniquely visible against the map of Argon’s relentlessly administrated peace, couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong. His hands clamped on the rail, sensing the vibration of its stress points under the pressure.  
Mara, he thought. Mara doesn’t know.

For some reason that made it even worse.

“Why didn’t he tell us?” he whispered finally, brow furrowing, as though seeking answers from the water.

“You mean, aside from how you’ve been saying that if you knew who it was you’d turn him in yourself?”

The question was matter-of-fact, with neither judgment nor anger attached; but it stung anyhow, and Zed’s voice rose with a squeak of outrage. “Well, yeah — but c’mon, that didn’t mean _him_ —!”

He couldn’t strike Able. He raised his fists to hit the rail instead; Able pulled him clear by his collar, but he did get one good kick in and the poorly maintained barrier (Beck could have done better) snapped outward into the water.

Good riddance. The thing had been a public hazard.

Zed took a few staggering steps back as dark droplets spattered the dock at his feet. His shoulder burned where Able had touched it; or maybe it was the rest of him that burned. He twisted, fists clenched, but the old mechanic was already walking away, baton in hand as though about to just ride off.

“What are—” Voice failing, Zed pulled in a compulsive breath. “What are you going to do now?”

Able slowed but didn’t stop, his hands already shaking the stark white-lined wireframe out of his baton.

“Going home.”

“You’re just gonna—”

“ _Home_ ,” Able interrupted, hollowness slipping again into his eyes and voice, his back bowing over the steerage; and he had always known everything, but it broke over Zed in a cold rush that he hadn’t known this. “You lemme know when you figure it out.”

The bike peeled away, leaving a char mark in the street and afterimages that flickered like lightning, and the peripheral invocation the old program’s words had always carried — _use your head, think it through, don’t be too long_ — resonated now as closer to a plea.

Zed swayed, far too light on his feet, like that time he’d got caught in a gravity shift at work and oh, how Mara had laughed; like that time Beck and Bodhi had sprung a surprise rave at the garage for no reason, and he’d been the first to walk in; like that time he’d first been told that Users were traitors and the champion Tron was dead, and everything was all wrong, but there was nothing he could do.

Then, more reluctantly than he’d ever done before, he rezzed his bike and followed.


End file.
